AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Blake Peterson "Desperately Seeking Susan" isn't so much a homage to the screwball comedy as it is a homage to the screwball situation. It doesn't try to be riotous or anything remotely Ernst Lubitsch — instead, it flutters by with half-smile as it discombobulates the at-first congenial attitude of the atmosphere. Never did I find myself laughing hysterically, but here, that's not the point. It wants to be an amuser in the same mindset as "Pretty in Pink", no knee- slappers to be found but charm spread aplenty. Because that's exactly what "Desperately Seeking Susan" is: a charming comedy of errors that likes to get its characters into as much trouble as possible for satisfactory diversion. Rosanna Arquette portrays Roberta Glass, a bored housewife who spends her afternoons watching cooking shows and living vicariously through the lonely hearts in the classified ads. Most interesting to her is the recurring 'Desperately Seeking Susan' ad, which follows the romance between Jim (Robert Joy) and his sexy girlfriend, Susan (Madonna), both of whom are young, bohemian, and fiercely independent. As she twiddles her thumbs for the umpteenth time one afternoon, Roberta decides to act as onlooker, tracking the twosome down and watching their public encounter from afar. She becomes infatuated with the street stylish Susan and, after a series of complicated events I won't bother to explain, she bumps her head, gets amnesia, and falls under the impression that, she is, in fact, Susan.Most housewives would want to be like the free-spirited woman, but Susan, as it so happens, is in a lot of trouble. Her boyfriend has just stolen valuable Egyptian jewelry, jewelry she enjoys wearing, and a gaggle of thugs are thirsty to get their paws on the collection. So as Roberta wanders around the city bearing Susan's name and wearing her clothes, the criminals begin to chase her, while the real Susan causes a ruckus elsewhere — eventually leading to Roberta's confused husband (Mark Blum). "Desperately Seeking Susan" is the best kind of amusing: pleasant but not so much so that we become immersed in the fact that things aren't as zany as they could be. The film is smartly amusing, after all, with the comic scenario bettering as it grows increasingly convoluted. The screenplay sizzles in its ability to entice us into Susan's world of bohemian style, and the actors are all winning: Arquette, in particular, carries the movie with her sincerely warm characterization. But the best thing about "Desperately Seeking Susan" is Susan Seidelman's great eye for street life: I've never been one to figure a movie is better simply because of the decade it sits in, but Seidelman, intentional or not, finds all the best things about the 1980s and seems to cram them into one excitingly snazzy picture. The ghettos are effectively hip, the suburbs slightly tongue-in-cheek, like "Wild At Heart" if it wasn't crazy. Seidelman's vision is best reflected in Madonna, in her earliest incarnation and her most kitschily well-dressed. "Desperately Seeking Susan" is slight when it comes to comedy but hugely successful when it comes to pure enjoyment. A product of the times, it has aged gloriously as a nostalgic piece snug in all the right places. And nothing's better than the boho sensuous Madonna (providing the soundtrack with guilty pleasure "Into the Groove") before she got all blond ambitious and stopped looking like the chic spunk who stole records as a pastime.

david-sarkies I generally do not like movies with Madonna, but this movie seems to portray her in her natural self. She is basically a slut who will jump in bed with anybody. Unfortunately she (Susan) gets involved with a man who is later thrown out of a window in Atlantic City. While this is happening, Ruberta (Rosanna Arquett) is following a series of personal adds from a guy named Jim to Susan. She basically wants some excitement in her life so she decides to find out who this person is. She goes to the meeting place and follows Susan to find her jacket in a shop. She buys the jacket and finds a locker key in it. When she goes to return it she is hassled by one of the crooks and knocks herself unconscious. When she wakes up, she has amnesia and with Susan's possessions on her, she thinks that she is actually her.I really did not think much of this movie and thus did not see much in it. I do not particularly like movies such as this which go into a portrayal of a seedy underclass in America. The underclass exists, but this movie portrays it in a good light, which is what I do not like. Susan is a part of this underclass: very self serving and doing her own thing without worrying about the effects that it will have on other people. She uses men for her own pleasures and does not care about them when she leaves them. She will walk out with no reason simply to pursue her own desires.This also looks at the upper class of society, but portrays it as a boring life. Ruberta wants excitement, and it is something that she does not get at home. As such she follows Jim and Susan's adds in the paper. Her husband, Gary, is a spa salesman, but not only is he naive, does not really care about his wife. As such she walks out. He thinks he knows her, but he does not because if he did he would see the frustration that is in her life. Like Susan, Gary is a very self centered person. He is having an affair, after four years of marriage, and really only cares about his own life. He does not listen to Ruberta's concerns and what is frustrating her. Thus she walks away because he simply refuses to see her. He tries to conform Ruberta into his idea of what a person is supposed to be like, but does not give her the freedom to express herself.It is interesting that when Susan comes to him, she walks right over him. She takes his car, stays in his house, and uses his wife's clothes. Thus not only do we see an upperclass business man, we also see a guy that is easily trodden over. He is walked all over, and thus he does the same with his wife. He is insecure because he cannot control the people around him, which is strange because he is a salesman. Even his add, when the girls pull him into the spa-bath, show us that he does not resist woman. Thus it seems that the progenitor of the affair is not him, but the woman. He probably did not resist though so we can't sympathise with him. Actually, the movie does not let us sympathise with him, and in the end he is left without a wife, who could have served him if he had done the same for her.

Jackson Booth-Millard I had always heard that in her whole "acting" career, the popular singer only did one good performance, anything afterwards has been terrible, so I had to see what she was like in the good one, from director Susan Seidelman (A Cooler Climate). Basically Roberta Glass (BAFTA winning, and Golden Globe nominated Rosanna Arquette) is in a boring marriage to husband Gary (Mark Blum), who takes her for granted, and the only way she entertains herself is following personal ads titled "Despareatly Seeking Susan", following the progress of a couple. Then she spots that the couple are to meet in New York, so she seeks adventure and follows the ad to its source, and she spots Susan (Madonna), the free-spirit drifter, buys her jacket to emulate her idol and follows her on the way. On her following, Roberta knocks her head into a post, causing her to experience amnesia and forget who she is, when Dez (Aidan Quinn) comes along mistaking her for Susan, and agrees to help her get back on her feet. The real Susan meanwhile gets arrested briefly, and then finds out that her belongings have been taken, and follows any clues she can to find this stranger seeking her. Roberta finds a job working as a magician's assistant at the Magic Club, and also has a run-in with the mob character that wants to get his hands on the real Susan. After this attack, Roberta knocks herself back into her true self, and goes back to Dez to have a night of passion, and husband Gary meanwhile uses the real Susan to look for her. When he finds her, Gary is convinced that Roberta has become a prostitute, well, she has certainly fallen out of love for him, and she pulls herself together to catch the mobster who has stolen some precious earrings. In the end, Roberta and the real Susan finally meet, with the help of the newspaper personal ads, Roberta gives with her new love Dez, and the two women are hailed as heroes in the newspaper for returning the stolen earrings. Also starring Robert Joy as Jim, Laurie Metcalf as Leslie Glass, Anna Levine as Crystal, Will Patton as Wayne Nolan, Peter Maloney as Ian, Steven Wright as Larry Stillman D.D.S, John Turturro as Ray and Anne Carlisle as Victoria. You could criticise that Madonna is almost playing herself, but it doesn't matter, she makes her character likable, while Arquette is endearing as the other woman, the story is reasonable, there are some giggly moments, and Madonna's first number one "Into The Groove" plays, so while it is a little more for women, it is a fun screwball comedy romance thriller. Madonna was number 12 on The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols, and she was number 4 on The Ultimate Pop Star. Very good!

lobianco These three actors who appear briefly but prominently in Desperately Seeking Susan also appear in lead roles in Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING: John Turtorro who plays the Magic Club MC in DSS also stars as DINO in Do the Right Thing . Richard Edson plays Dino's brother Vito in Do The Right Thing appears as "man with newspapers" in DSS. Then you have Giancarlo Esposito who played the unforgettable"Buggin Out" in Do The Right Thing. The patron who points out that there are no pictures of black celebrities on the wall in the pizza parlor where brothers Dino and Vito work. Giancarlo is the third actor from Do The Right Thing to also to appear in Desperately Seeking Susan. He plays the street vendor who attempts to sell the lead actress a hat. Another interesting bit of trivia in Desperately Seeking Susan is that Richard Edson's co-hort in "Stranger Than Paradise" John Lurie also has a bit part in the film.